This talk explores the phenomenon of the ‘quick-fixes’ that can be seen widely on the streets and in homes across China. These seemingly spontaneous and insignificant quick- fixes, when viewed as a whole, offer a unique way of viewing contemporary Chinese society itself. This talk introduces and explores some of the sizable photographic archive of quick-fixes Aitchison has collected and in doing so jumps across fields connecting documentary photography to craft techniques, generational politics, decision making processes, the status of public space, wealth distribution and recycling, to name but a few of the directions it shoots out in. It provides a ground level view of China during its current period of rapid urbanisation and modernisation and considers the quick-fix as the contemporary Chinese modus operandi. Rather than seeing them as a negative thing, however, this body of work communicates some of the creativity that can be found in quick-fixes, whilst not forgetting the reasons that require them in the first place.